What do former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, newly resigned International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have in common?
They are all powerful, older men, who have access to money and who may have hidden acts of abuse for years. They each have used their wealth and power for protection from their victims and the law. And they are fighting to continue to wield power.
Catholic bishops, ‘Protectors of the Church’. Strauss-Kahn, ‘Great Seducer’. Schwarzenegger, ‘Muscled sexual-swaggerer and liar’.
The Catholic bishops, despite their ungodly efforts at hiding and running from sexual abuse victims for over three decades, have probably lost nearly a billion dollars. The total eventual cost? To turn a phrase, ‘priceless’.
And, according to the May 19 Los Angeles Times article entitled “Society is to blame for priest sex abuse,” they’re still working to camouflage history. The article, concluding that society is to blame, was “commissioned by Catholic Bishops” and was prepared by John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
While it can be faulted for blaming society for the Church’s woes, it did make two other points:
First, is that celibacy, in and of itself, did not “cause” priests to molest children.
Second, is that homosexuality, in and of itself, likewise, did not “cause” priests to molest children.
But commendation must end there. For when it came to the lynchpin of how the abuse and pedophilia continued and how the tactics of hate, torment, and scorn of victims became part of the church’s defense, it shockingly let the Catholic bishops off the hook!
According to the Times article, “church leaders did not try to shape the research, and… the report did not let anyone off the hook.” Yeah, sure. Just like Strauss-Kahn who may claim he had only consensual sex with the maid and Arnold who, for 13 years, just forgot to tell his wife that their maid’s kid was his.
Reaction to the bishops’ report has just begun. David Finkelhor of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said: “Unfortunately, they are going to get lambasted (for)… the lack of emphasis on the terrible mishandling of this whole phenomenon by the bishops and the church hierarchy.”
William Donohoe, the outspoken president of the conservative Catholic League, was one of the first to take issue with the fact that homosexuality was not a root cause of the abuse. How can that be, he wondered on his website. Donohoe’s line of reasoning equates rape as being a mere sex act between a man and a woman. You put it in, you take it out. With his logic, an armed robber who kills his victim is not a criminal, he’s just a marksman who’s practicing.
Minister Donohoe, rape is an act of power and control, not a sexual act. The victim did not ask for it, nor did they deserve or attract it. The perpetrator is a criminal sexual predator with male genitalia.
Similarly, young boys are not sexual beings. They did not invite or consent to the abuse. Even the 78% of boys identified by the bishops’ report as being “beyond puberty”, who may not have been considered young enough to be considered an enticing target for predatory priests, were not consenting. This is a point that is made clear in the law. The Catholic priest is a criminal sexual predator with male genitalia.
So, who is to blame? According to the bishops’ report, it is society. This is a concerning conclusion.
It is difficult to comprehend how the Church’s most senior members, who were meant to serve God, could have committed such heinous acts and yet be absolved of any wrongdoing, simply because they were “responding to social turmoil”. Such thinking is a far cry from the Church’s reputation as the Rock of Gibraltar of religions, and more akin to the foundations of drugs, sex and rock and roll. It is perhaps time for a change in leadership, and Stephen Tyler could be a suitable candidate for the role of Pope.
